Hanover residents still waiting for state to act on contamination cleanup

Eight months after state environmental officials assured concerned residents that they were working on a plan to clean up a high-priority contamination site, there is still no plan or timeline for the cleanup.

Eight months after state environmental officials assured concerned residents that they were working on a plan to clean up a high-priority contamination site, there is still no plan or timeline for the cleanup.

“Our goal of reporting results to the public was optimistic,” said Joseph Ferson, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. “But we are making substantial progress on settlement negotiations.”

In November, state officials told nearly 100 residents at a forum that they were in negotiations with the polluters and zeroing in on a cleanup strategy for the 240-acre site of an old fireworks and munitions plant in the southwest corner of town.

Ferson said Friday that a plan will be released “soon” but did not specify a date or time period.

Selectman Susan M. Setterland said the town is waiting for news from the environmental agency.

“It’s been on the agenda since the ’80s,” she said Thursday. “We’d like to see a solution during our tenure.” At the fall forum, residents said they were frustrated that decades have gone by without significant cleanup of the contamination.

State environmental officials said the site is a challenging one to fix. Its Tier 1A status means the site is the most severe to deal with because of ecological risks.

“Some sites are easy and are cleaned up in five years. This is a very complicated site,” said Len Pinaud in November at the forum, held at Hanover High. Pinaud is a regional site manager for the state environmental agency.

“When we pick a remedy in 2013, we’ll have a more certain timeframe,” he said at the time.

Despite concerns about cancer rates in town, public health officials said that they analyzed cancer incidence in Hanover between 2004 and 2008 and spotted “no red flags” that link to the site.

More than six decades of munitions manufacturing and explosives testing at the site helped to arm the U.S. military during four wars. It also polluted the soil and water with enough mercury, lead and other chemicals to qualify it as a federal Superfund site.

Hanover selectmen have fought attempts to have the federal Environmental Protection Agency step in with a Superfund designation, opting to work with the state and negotiate a cleanup plan with the parties responsible for the contamination. Those parties are the U.S. Department of Defense, Rockland-based National Coating Corp. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which dumped toxic waste at the site.

Some critics have questioned the move to steer away from Superfund and the EPA.

Last year, David Ozonoff, an expert in Superfund sites and a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, said the Superfund process is cumbersome and complicated but can be more effective.

Page 2 of 2 - Ozonoff said the EPA is more powerful than towns and states when going up against polluters.

“If the EPA is in charge, they’re much harder to influence than the town or state,” Ozonoff told The Ledger last year.

But state Rep. Rhonda Nyman, D-Hanover, said Friday that she is content with the process led by the state agency.

“People I’ve heard from were glad it didn’t have to go that way and not give Hanover the stigma (of Superfund status),” she said. “There are not serious health concerns, and people want to protect their property values and still do the cleanup.”